Pacing timer gadgets

I need to pace myself very carefully (15 mins lying down every hour, and being outside my home no more than 40 mins) or I get bad PEM and probably scupper my chances of a gradual recovery.

I find it hard to keep track of the time and to discipline myself to come in when my time is up but I've found a couple of gadgets that I think will help me and that might help others, both via Ebay. One is a cheapish clock that "chimes" every hour and the other is a vibrating wristwatch/detachable timer.

One is a naff-looking British birdsong wall clock made by Zeon that is also available on both UK and US Ebay (search on either site using "birdsong wallclock"). It's useful because it makes a different birdcall every hour (as long as the lights are on! it has a sensor). I like the idea of it because it won't be making an obnoxious beeping noise and it's small enough (8" diameter) for me to shove its ugly self behind some books on a shelf or something but still hear it! It costs about 20 including p&p in the UK. I've noticed that conventional chiming clocks are even more naff and are extremely expensive.

The other thing is a vibrating wrist timer called "Shake-n-Wake" (what classy stuff I am buying!). It looks as though you can either have it on a strap round your wrist or put it in your pocket. I like the idea of this because if I'm outside the house I don't want a beeper going off (I might not hear it; and if I'm with someone, they might think I'm weird for having a beeper!). It's about 17 on the UK Ebay including p&p. Here it is on the US Ebay site.

I am usually loathe to spend money on gadgets but I would spend this on drugs that I think would help me so it seems nuts not to, given how important pacing is. And it will help my bird identification skills! :Retro smile:

We ought to start a Naff Club.
Have you seen The Time Tunnel? A super Naff TV show from the sixties that I used to be addicted to. Their special effects were done with coloured torches and tinfoil while the two men sort of rolled about on the floor looking uncomfortable. This was supposed to represent their molecules being rearranged in the time tunnel. It was fabulous!
And while we're admitting to naffness, I would really like to buy one of those hair-raisingly awful loo roll cosies, where you have a little doll and her Victorian crinoline skirt made of crotchet is pulled over the spare loo roll. I live in Italy where it's illegal to have anything naff in your house and when I told my friends that some English people actually use these, they refused to believe me.

Oh, loved The Time Tunnel - I think Garcia has a photo of it as his avatar! They don't make them like that any more. People underestimate tinfoil.

Your Italian friends could visit any English b&b and would find that the crinoline lady toilet roll thingy is still mandatory for guesthouses in 2010, as are pink rosebuds on everything. I just searched for the crinoline lady on Ebay and to my amazement couldn't see one - perhaps she has graduated to car boot sales, that museum of all our childhoods! Everything I ever owned as a kid I seem to come across there, sooner or later.

Italian pop music is indescribably naff. It is impossible to believe it comes from the nation that invented opera. Ah, how the mighty have fallen!
Apart from that I am really struggling, but I now realise I shall lie awake tonight, determined to compose a list for you tomorrow...

I have suddenly remembered the first time my husband saw me preparing eggy soldiers for breakfast. He had thought the egg cups were weird coffee cups.... but the best bit was when I put the knitted egg cosies on (hand knitted by a beloved great aunt). He actually carried the whole thing onto the balcony so he could show it to the next door neighbour.
How can it be that even our food seems naff compared with Italian stuff? This just isn't fair.

Italian pop music is indescribably naff. It is impossible to believe it comes from the nation that invented opera. Ah, how the mighty have fallen!
Apart from that I am really struggling, but I now realise I shall lie awake tonight, determined to compose a list for you tomorrow...

I have suddenly remembered the first time my husband saw me preparing eggy soldiers for breakfast. He had thought the egg cups were weird coffee cups.... but the best bit was when I put the knitted egg cosies on (hand knitted by a beloved great aunt). He actually carried the whole thing onto the balcony so he could show it to the next door neighbour.
How can it be that even our food seems naff compared with Italian stuff? This just isn't fair.

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Wow, excellent book - I particularly like the loo roll thing that looks like Dougal from the Magic Roundabout. Italy is missing out.

The Italians don't have egg cups? How do they stop their eggs rolling about everywhere? Our stuff may be naff but no boiled eggs will roll, no toilet tissue will be exposed... definitely Italy's loss, confirmed by the egg cosies.

I think there is an export/import opportunity there, to fill the naff gap.

Oh wow! Yes! I could open a shop called Naff & Co, selling not only loo roll, egg and tea cosies, but also those plates where you weave a ribbon through slots round the edge, Cornish pastie shoes (Are the Italians ready?), calendars with puppies on, Rolls of Wallace and Gromit style wallpaper, monoslippers, a vast variety of hot water bottles (with cosies)... oh the options are making me dizzy!

Oh wow! Yes! I could open a shop called Naff & Co, selling not only loo roll, egg and tea cosies, but also those plates where you weave a ribbon through slots round the edge, Cornish pastie shoes (Are the Italians ready?), calendars with puppies on, Rolls of Wallace and Gromit style wallpaper, monoslippers, a vast variety of hot water bottles (with cosies)... oh the options are making me dizzy!

I so wish I could knit, I really NEED a Dougal loo roll holder.

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Yes! Yes! It would be Wallace's house made manifest in a shop. What a concept! Don't forget those square teapot stands with a scenic photo in the middle and a faux plywood border!

Yes! And I could sell sets of commemorative plates with picures of the Queen Mother, and genuine simulated faux mahogany-look display cabinets of limited edition collectable Princess Diana ceramic thimbles, And those weird sets of three doilies that old people drape over the back and arms of their armchairs. Ha! And those horseshoe-shaped carpets that fit around the toilet bowl, with a matching fluffy toilet seat cosy with an easy-fit elasticated rim. What is it about English people wanting to put cosies on everything they own to keep it warm?

Well I actually was awake nearly all night, so I had lots of time to compose this:

1. They put lace doilies under their ornaments
2. When you have a baby, they give you silver photo frames with embossed images of clowns or Winnie the Pooh on them
3. Lots of Italian men still use wet-look hair gel
4. Last year there was a fashion for gold, patent leather trainers (for both sexes): Everyone looked as if they had encased their feet in the foil wrappers from inside Cadburys chocolate bars.
5. They always furnish their children's bedrooms with that furniture that's made of Weetabix coated in plastic, in hideous dayglo colour schemes like blue and orange, shocking pink and purple, yellow and lime green etc.

Well I actually was awake nearly all night, so I had lots of time to compose this:

1. They put lace doilies under their ornaments
2. When you have a baby, they give you silver photo frames with embossed images of clowns or Winnie the Pooh on them
3. Lots of Italian men still use wet-look hair gel
4. Last year there was a fashion for gold, patent leather trainers (for both sexes): Everyone looked as if they had encased their feet in the foil wrappers from inside Cadburys chocolate bars.
5. They always furnish their children's bedrooms with that furniture that's made of Weetabix coated in plastic, in hideous dayglo colour schemes like blue and orange, shocking pink and purple, yellow and lime green etc.

Just seen your other post on insomnia, good to see that at least you can have some good imagery to go with it!

How interesting that the Italians have totally different naff stuff to the Brits. I'm sure those trainers didn't make it to this side of the Channel (unless I am moving in the wrong circles!). I haven't come across the plastic Weetabix furniture either - sounds absolutely terrifying.

Ahh, doilies, though! I remember doilies! My grandma used to have them under her ornaments on her bedroom dresser (but she was 70 and that was 1970!).

This is fascinating. Not only does each country probably have a massive gap in its market for other countries' naff stuff but I'm sure there's a PhD in it somewhere for someone to do a cross-cultural study of naff.

I think the UK naff prize of all time, though, goes to an exhibit that I saw at that big home show at Olympia that they used to do (where they used to even build a house inside) in about 1970 - some designer had created a room divider made out of linking together a load of those plastic trays that hold the chocolates in boxes of Cadbury's Milk Tray! Groovy, man!

Even though this thread has strayed from its original topic... .....I'd like to make a contribution...

The most helpful gadget for keeping track of time and timer is this watch. While it doesn't look like much, its most helpful feature is the button timer. Push the button once and it starts a 1 minute timer. Push again and it goes to 3 minutes. Again and it goes to five minutes. And so on for 10, 15, 20, and 30 minutes. Easy, easy, easy. Eventually you don't even need to look at it, but you can always check the watch face and see how much time you've set and/or approximately how much is left by a little blinking bar on top.

In addition to that most often used feature, you can set a short beeping to go off every hour (useful for keeping track of the time) and also set an alarm to go off a specific time each day. Date and day of the week is seen by holding down one of the buttons; the screen goes back to time as soon as you release the button.

A very simple watch designed for those who need to keep track of time. Imagine that! I found the reviews on Amazon rather entertaining to read.

Very funny thread. I had to look up the definitions of naff, scupper, car boot sales, monoslippers, cornish pastie shoes....just because I like to learn LOL

My grandmother had those doilies on her dressers too, and I've seen them on the backs of armchairs, so that trend made it to Canada too.

Just to keep my response somewhat relevant to the title of the thread - I took a 'Fibro course' that stressed the importance of pacing and using a timer was recommended, but I never actually put it into practice. Should have.

Hi Dainty - that's a great watch! Those Amazon reviews are indeed very entertaining - amazing what people are putting that watch through! Any watch that can survive a laundry cycle gets my vote. Not expensive, either. I'm going to need to be away from home in a few weeks and won't be taking a clock with me (!) so I think I'll order one of these. Thanks for the tip!

Hi kerrilyn - ahhh, doilies! Doilies! How did they ever go out of fashion?!

I did that online CFS/fibro course but wasn't very disciplined but it's never too late to start. Together, with our timer gadgets, and with or without our doilies, we can do it!

That watch looks fantastic, I definitely think I'll buy one. It sounds as if it might even survive my little boy's attentions.

One of my M.E. friends bought a pedometer to measure her walking distance over the day. It was a tiny thing that clipped on her belt. She said you clock up a great distance doing little chores, even just round the house, and you don't realise you do a lot more some days than others. I suppose over time you could train yourself to regularise, to avoid overdoing it without realising.

A milk Tray room divider...?? What a shame I missed that!!!! It reminds me of a scary TV programme in Italy where a woman shows you how to fill your house with rubbish. One time I saw it, she made a large lampshade out of old biro pens. Another time she made a doormat by laboriously wiring together about 500 plastic bottle tops. And the worst of all time was a "bookcase" made of those rough wooden crates that greengrocers get their fruit in. You'd get splinters under your nails just from looking at it. People watch the show simpy to marvel at the jaw-droppingly awful stuff she comes up with.

By the way I still have a pattern book of lace doilies from the 1970s, that my grandmother gave me. I think it's time to get crotcheting...

I was researching the watch today and ran across two other versions of apparently the same thing, one in gold and another in stainless. I have no experience with these versions, but it's clear they all have the same countdown feature so functionality should be on par with the original (black) version. Just figured I'd let you guys know before you purchase, so you can choose a style that fits you.

Too bad I don't get paid anything for recommending their products.... lol...